Did Iranian Drone, Shot Down by Israel, Include Technology From US Drone Captured Last Year?

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The Israeli Defense Forces initially played down the intrusion of an Iranian-made drone in Israeli airspace last week. Now it turns out, not only did the drone transmit intelligence back to Iran, it also evaded several efforts by an IDF F-16 to shoot it down.

The New York Post revealed these details earlier today:

A drone plane transmitted live pictures of secret Israeli military bases back to Iran’s military, marking a rare breach of Israeli airspace and a new kind of arms race in the Middle East.

The drone, launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Oct. 6, is also believed to have transmitted pictures of preparations for a joint Israel-US military exercise, ballistic missile sites, and possibly Israel’s top-secret nuclear reactor near Dimona.

The three-hour drone flight was initially downplayed by Israeli officials red-faced over the shocking breach of their airspace.

Even the drone’s ultimate interception by an F-16 jet was botched — it took two tries for the pilot to down the unmanned plane.

An Israeli defense source blamed the drone’s infiltration on its “unfamiliar stealth elements.”

After finding out that an Iranian drone, with presumably homemade technology, avoided one of the world’s most advanced military’s radar, antiaircraft, and fighter jet capabilities for hours, some are wondering if the drone capitalized on some of the technology harvested from the U.S. drone captured by Iran last year.

More Obama Incompetency: Marines Protecting Barbados But Not Benghazi?

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When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were no U.S. Marines deployed in Libya to defend U.S. diplomats, diplomatic facilities and classified information and equipment.

However, says the State Department, a Marine Security Detachment was deployed on that day to carry out those duties at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“U.S. Marine Security Guards serve at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, and at other diplomatic missions around the world, to protect and safeguard American diplomacy,” Rebecca Ross, the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Counselor for Public Affairs, said in a statement to CNSNews.com.

“On September 11, 2012, our U.S. Marine Security Detachment carried out its regular duties which include providing internal security, preventing the compromise of classified information and equipment, and providing protection for U.S. citizens and property located within official U.S. facilities,” Ross said.

On August 16, less than a month before the terrorists struck the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the U.S. Marine Security Guard Force in Barbados led a physical fitness test for young athletes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shrinking Product Sizes Hides Inflation

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By Mary Kay Linge. These incredibly shrinking products are putting a stealth squeeze on our already thin wallets.

More companies are downsizing their packages — but many consumers don’t realize they’re getting the shaft because price and size changes are carefully camouflaged.

“We get a ton of examples of these from readers,” said Chris Morran of the Consumerist Web site. “You pay the same price but you get less product.”

Not even supermarket standards like the 5-pound bag of sugar are safe from shrinkage. The new normal: 4 pounds of the sweet stuff per bag.

Ivory Soap bars have slimmed down — going down from 4.5 to 4 ounces.

Toilet paper, once sold in standard 4.5-inch-square sheets, now may be so narrow that it slides out of your wall holder. Read more from this story HERE.

List of 10 Shrinking Products

By Consumer Reports.

Ivory dish detergent
Old: 30 oz.
New: 24 oz.
Difference: -20 percent
Reason: The 30-ounce product was discontinued in smaller stores, due to increased costs for raw materials.

Tropicana orange juice
Old: 64 oz.
New: 59 oz.
Difference: -7.8 percent
Reason: Last winter’s freeze in Florida. The choice was to raise prices drastically or drop package size. Based on consumer research, people preferred to keep the same price and get a little less juice to keep within their budgets.

Kraft American cheese
Old: 24 slices
New: 22 slices
Difference: -8.3 percent
Reason: The larger 16-ounce package was discontinued because it wasn’t selling.
More from Consumer Reports.

Kirkland Signature (Costco) paper towels
Old: 96.2 sq. ft.
New: 85 sq. ft.
Difference: -11.6 percent
Reason: “It’s a good question. I’ll look into it and e-mail a response.” (We never got one.)

Häagen-Dazs ice cream
Old: 16 oz.
New: 14 oz.
Difference: -12.5 percent
Reason: Due to the cost of ingredients and facility costs, it was either change the size of the container or raise the price.

Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Supporters Coming Out of Their Hollywood Closets: Today, Scott Baio & Piers Morgan

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By Erin O’Sullivan. Chalk one up for Mitt Romney – he’s got former “Happy Days” star Scott Baio’s vote.

The actor, now starring in Nick at Nite’s new comedy, “See Dad Run,” stopped by Access Hollywood Live on Friday where he explained why he supports the Republican Presidential nominee.

“I believe in Governor Romney for a lot of different reasons. I’ve met him many times and he’s a straight up guy, he’s a good guy, great family man [and] his kids are fantastic,” Scott told Kit Hoover and Billy Bush. “I think we need to be fixed in this country.”

Scott said being a Republican in typically-left-leaning Hollywood can be intimidating and he feels for actress Stacey Dash, who recently faced a barrage of mean-spirited comments after revealing she’s voting for Romney.

“I don’t think anybody should bash anybody for what they believe. I have my beliefs, you have yours,” he said. “Just leave her alone, let her say what she wants to say. Freedom of speech.” Read more from this story HERE.

Piers Morgan Calls Romney the Least Principled Politician He’s Met, but He’s Endorsing Him

By Piers Morgan. An extraordinary political earthquake struck America this week. Mitt Romney, widely assumed to be the ‘best of a weak bunch’ of Republican candidates, suddenly overtook Barack Obama in election polls.

Remarkably for someone with a reputation as Mr Dullard, it was his brilliant performance on October 3 at the first of three presidential debates, where he scored the biggest win ever over an oddly downcast Obama, that propelled him into the favourite’s chair.

Should Romney now win on November 6, America will not only have replaced its first black President with its first Mormon President.

It will also have elected the squeakiest-clean man ever to run for the presidency in any country in the world.

Imagine for a moment an interview with a British politician that went as follows:
Q:  Have you ever drunk alcohol?
A:  No.
Q:  Have you ever taken drugs?
A:  No.
Q:  Have you ever had an affair?
A:  No.
Q:  Have you ever smoked a cigarette?
A:  No.
Q:  Do you ever use swear words?
A:  No.

Read more from this story HERE.

Free Speech Dying in the Western World

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Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony.

In the face of the violence that frequently results from anti-religious expression, some world leaders seem to be losing their patience with free speech. After a video called “Innocence of Muslims” appeared on YouTube and sparked violent protests in several Muslim nations last month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that “when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.”

It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance. As Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it in her recent speech before the United Nations, “Our tolerance must never extend to tolerating religious hatred.”

A willingness to confine free speech in the name of social pluralism can be seen at various levels of authority and government. In February, for instance, Pennsylvania Judge Mark Martin heard a case in which a Muslim man was charged with attacking an atheist marching in a Halloween parade as a “zombie Muhammed.” Martin castigated not the defendant but the victim, Ernie Perce, lecturing him that “our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures — which is what you did.”

Of course, free speech is often precisely about pissing off other people — challenging social taboos or political values.

Read more from this story HERE.

United Nations’ Effort to Tax, Regulate Internet Gaining Steam

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U.S. Ambassador Terry Kramer warned on Friday that a proposal to give a United Nations agency more control over the Internet is gaining momentum in other countries.

Proposals to expand the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) authority over the Internet could come up at a treaty conference in Dubai in December. European telecommunications companies are pushing a plan that would create new rules that would allow them to charge more to carry international traffic.

The proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association could force websites like Google, Facebook and Netflix to pay fees to network operators around the world.

Kramer said the idea of an international Internet fee is “gaining more interest in the African states and also in the Arab states.”

He said the United States delegation to the conference will have to redouble its efforts to convince other countries that the proposal would only stifle innovation and economic growth.

Read more from this story HERE.

NY Times: Voter Registration Databases Can Easily Be Hacked

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Computer security experts have identified vulnerabilities in the voter registration databases in two states, raising concerns about the ability of hackers and others to disenfranchise voters.

In the last five years, Maryland and Washington State have set up voter registration systems that make it easy for people to register to vote and update their address information online. The problem is that in both states, all the information required from voters to log in to the system is publicly available.

It took The New York Times less than three minutes to track down the information online needed to update the registrations of several prominent executives in Washington State. Complete voter lists, which include a name, birth date, addresses and party affiliation, can be easily bought — and are, right now, in the hands of thousands of campaign volunteers.

Computer security experts and voting rights activists argue that a hacker could use that information to, say, change a person’s address online to ensure that the voter never receives a ballot in Washington, where voting is now done entirely by mail. In Maryland, hackers could ensure that a voter is not listed on the precinct register at a designated polling station. In that case, the voter would be redirected to another precinct, or asked to fill out a provisional ballot. In both cases, the person would not be able to vote in local, or possibly, Congressional races.

But the real concern, critics say, is that large numbers of voters from one political party, or demographic, could have their information changed by automated computer programs. A program that could change tens of thousands of voter records at once, they say, would require only a dozen lines of code.

Read more from this article HERE.

Video: Parents of Fallen SEAL Say Obama Put Target on Son’s Back, Call Rules of Engagement “Criminal”

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A new ad by Veterans for a Strong America hammers the Obama Administration. The ad features two parents who blame Obama for “putting a target” on their son’s back. The SEAL team member was killed when their helicopter was shot down over the Wardak Province in Afghanistan.

After showing the ad, Hannity then interviews the parents of the fallen SEAL. The father explains that Obama has virtually neutered our warriors’ ability to wage war in Afghanistan.

He goes on to detail how his son was killed, stating that, despite the presence of two Apache AH64 helicopters and a massive AC130 gunship, the SEALs were not permitted to prep the landing site prior to landing. This was despite an ongoing firefight on the ground. The father says that the landing was handled like a “landing at Walmart.”

Saying that the “President is directly responsible for the rules of engagement,” he calls them “criminal for our warriors.”

Student Wearing Romney T-Shirt Ridiculed for Wearing “KKK Garb” in a “Democratic School”

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Samantha Pawlucy, a 16-year-old student at Charles Carroll High School in Philadelphia, was ridiculed in front of her geometry class by teacher Lynette Gaymon for wearing a t-shirt expressing support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Pawlucy told a radio station that Gaymon likened the shirt to KKK garb and insisted that “this is a Democratic school.” Due in part to widespread outrage from conservatives—including Romney, who called Pawlucy on Wednesday to thank her for courage—Gaymon was switched to a different class.

[School District Communications Chief Fernando] Gallard affirmed the student’s right to wear the shirt, and said the district was supporting her “absolutely, from day one.”

“We provided support, we told [the Pawlucy family] that we were going to investigate, we removed the teacher from the classroom where the student was attending, and we have been in constant contact to provide for [Pawlucy’s] support,” he said.

District Superintendent Dr. William Hite released a statement of support for both the student and the teacher.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Secret Service Agent Arrested, in Drunken Stupor on Miami Sidewalk (+video)

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U.S. Secret Service agent Aaron Francis Engler was found early Friday morning passed out on the sidewalk near the intersection of Brickell Avenue and 7th just hours after President Barack Obama had left South Florida.

According to the arrest report, Miami police officers were in the area around 7 a.m. on an unrelated call when they noticed Engler passed out. According to the arrest report, when the officers checked on the man, he had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and a strong odor of alcohol. Police said Engler started throwing his arms around while he and started to fight with officers, the report said.

The officers then took Engler to the ground and handcuffed him. As an officer searched Engler’s pockets, he discovered Engler’s Secret Service identification.

The officer didn’t make the find without a fight. During the search, sources said Engler threw his arms around and hit the officer in the chin.

Law enforcement sources told CBS4 Engler told police he was an agent out of Washington and was part of the advance team for the president’s visit on Thursday.